Work, rest in pieces, play
by I-need-asprin
Summary: Slight Au - Tony's just doing his daily business, enjoying his every day superhero life before some new threat comes into town in the form of a sorceress named Amora. He has to save the city again but this time he has a little help from a rather irritated ex. Loki Laufeyson. Yes, it is as shit as the summary makes it sound. *coughing* /Crack/ *wheezing* Loki/Tony
1. Problems

One day. One day was all he wanted. Just one day without all the terrorised screaming and blood curdling wailing. One freakin' day.

But as he looked out of his bedroom window post-late night nap, gazing into war-torn, sullied streets, he had a strong suspicion that today wasn't going to be that day.

* * *

Loki explodes - red gore splattering on everything and everyone around. Amora smiles, pleased her art was improving as she aged.

That was the end of that annoying little loose end.

She walks off, the destruction and chaos she had caused adding to her smile. She had killed her plaything, she had killed her now useless emissaries and now all she had left were the burnt clothes on her skin, the greasy golden shine of her hair and the glossy pink fullness of her lips.

He was fun for a while, but he got boring. His laugh was growing dry, his eyes loosing their shimmer. Even his mouth hadn't teased her with their usual ferosity as of late. It just wouldn't do. She wiped the splatter of spleen juice from her cheek and pulled a stray molar from her hair, flicking it to the rubble littered ground. It bounced lightly off a slow roasting arm.

She thinks she is home free, taking time to drag her bare toes through the ash as if it were fine white sand. Then she was struck. The white energy burning into her skin. She laid where she had fell, dark charred flesh peeling as the skin beneath healed. _That wasn't very nice._

"You bastard." She curses while sitting up, a colorful man of iron landing gracefully atop a semi-burning pile of what might have been a baby's pram, she wasn't sure. The iron man doesn't respond with words but another round of hand fire. This time it hits her square in the face, burning off her quite frankly alarming shade of eyeshadow.

He shoots again but this time Amora rolls away, jumping to her feet and to saftey in one easy motion. Amora gives him a taste of his own medicine, reflecting back the next power burst with the flick of her wrist. Stark stumbles on the ground, but does not fall. Pulling the brickwork from a collapsed building, Amora telekinetically smashes it into the bug beneath her boot. The red and yellow dust that ricocheted off coats the ground in what Amora thinks a pretty color. She giggles as the suited man groans, finally fallen. But before she has time to enjoy the fleeting moment, from out the still falling red mist, she see's something emerge but it hit her before she could see what. She almost cries out as the missile impacts her shoulder and explodes. Her burnt a tattered sleeve falls from the rest of her green mini-dress, waving itself to the ground in defeat. Amora however still stood and laughed.

"What next, big boy?" The dirty, mud and ash smeared machine stands up from the ground, plates of his armor falling as they let go from the others. She sees the bare flesh of his arms and thigh through said gaps, aiming her next attack there. Tony's following shriek comes as the daggers narrowly miss him. He fires off the thrust, propelling himself clumsily into the air with neither coordination or sights. Mid acceleration his mask flies off and flips to the floor, Jarvis deeming it necessary for some faulty reason. He flew to Stark Tower, taking this little quarrel home with him.

He lands on his penthouse balcony, and although not quite sure how, she had beaten him there. Amora pulls him towards her and hurtles him into and through the window. She walks over the glass shards as if it were snow, to where Tony was recovering.

She rips the helmet from his head and tosses it to the floor. It slides in a spin only stopping when it hits the side of the sofa. She then grabs a fistful of his hair, hoisting him to his feet. He claws back at her, trying to Bruce Lee his way out of this but god is she strong. She pulls him along, chuckling the whole way before crashing his head into the wall fitted fish tank. He choked as she held him under the water that came gushing out over him. It was all over quickly, her interest quickly turning to the fire place. She marches him over there, Tony still practically a puppet. Taking a stoker out of it's holder, she holds it in the fire, Tony prepared to do whatever it takes to get out of this death grip, even if that means scalping himself which it just might. He somehow wrestles free before she can stick that red hot poker through some rather unwilling oripheses.

He scutters to the stairway, half falling down each step but she appears ahead of him. She drags him back up and he's starting to feel a bit like a tit.

He had to change the order here. Which one of them was privy to the most advanced technological weponry and defences, and which of them was donning a mini dress and pigtails?

She pins him under some really crappy and unfair 'magic spell.' He almost cries as she starts taking a randomly appearing baseball bat to Tony's toys.

It's when she swings the wooden sports item into his speaker system that shit gets personal.

* * *

When Loki reforms among the ash and the flame, he's fresh faced and royally pissed.


	2. Partners

Loki stumbles into the parlour, eyes crinkling with joy as he takes in the view before him. Amora, greatest witch in the nine realms and his own ex-lover is currently sitting on a man's wheezing chest, eating ice cream with a knife.

Amora slows her chewing of the cookie dough chunk carved from the tub as she lays eyes on him.

"Honey," She coos, batting those emerald eyes. "It's not what it looks like."

Loki laughs, pulling down the cuffs of his leather jacket.

"You always were a funny one."

"Okay, enough with the foreplay - your girlfriends really quite heavy so if you wouldn't mind getting on with it." Loki takes heed of the man's words and with a crack of his knuckles, Amora is thrown to the wall, ice cream flying off in a different direction and slamming into the floor, spreading out in wide, white tendrils. This new man grunts at the mess, but is happy with the lack of rib crushing weight. Loki holds out a hand which the man accepts. Once pulled to his feet, Tony has little time before Amora's back with fire in her eyes. And also in her hands and that's the part that hurts the most.

The curtains are the first to fall to her vicious attack, quickly followed by the bed which somehow ended up in the lounge. Coordinating their attack, Loki and Tony lunge at her from both sides. She steps back and out of the way but Tony keeps going into the opposite wall, colliding into it with a low, harsh groaning sound. Loki is however skilled enough and not-concussed enough to swerve. Tony flops back out of the man shaped dent in the wall and onto the floor, coughing out some plaster and brick dust as he lands.

He's really going to hurt in the morning.

Loki and Amora are still fighting above him, resorting rather childishly to hair pulling and biting. Amora's winning this one and Loki's mentally booking a barber's appointment.

Tony helps out at this point, bringing down an iron fist into the head of our all-time favourite witches spine, making her recoil. Loki's all too grateful for the lack of teeth in his shoulder blade and repays Tony by moving him into the path of Amora's retaliation. Tony is thrown to the floor in the middle of the room, Loki suddenly feeling quite vulnerable. Amora doesn't fire at him however, the chain holding up the chandelier being her next target. Noticing and predicting her movements, Loki grabs Tony's forearms, pulling him away from the light fixture as it fell. It's Tony's turn to be grateful. They then, with some well-earned and well-timed luck manage to catch her off guard. Loki appears behind her, holding her still and Tony fires a single shot into her stomach, which then turns into about eighteen, just because she smashed up his sound-system, _that psychotic bitch. _Loki then takes top and relieves a few issues of his own.

Smashing her face into the remains of the jewelled bulbs and then cracking the back of her head into his knee, Loki was taking more pleasure from it than was likely deemed appropriate. She'd blown him up, he figured he was owed his fun.

She lay on the ground, breathing heavily. Loki had won. Which on reflection was only natural. He _was_ the best; at everything that is, not just beating the shit out of another. Although there he admittedly does excel. Tony, now thinking it safe lets his muscles relent, and dropped, knees buckling beneath him. He needed a hug.

Loki sees the fall, and after patting the lump of ammonia and silicone implants on the bloody hair, walks over.

"Loki." He pants, taking this time of shared exhaustion to introduce himself.

"The Norse dude?" Tony looks up at him, eyebrows both raised in confusion and furrowed in fatigue.

"The very same." Tony wipes the stray bit of blood from the corner of his mouth, cleaning his teeth with his tongue.

"You're real?" He checks as Loki crouches down so they're at eye level.

"Hopefully." Tony put down his sanity. He didn't need that right now.

"Tony." He holds out a hand that's a little sweaty but generally clean.

"Pleasure." Loki takes it with long and pale fingers. His grips firm, and Tony likes that. Loki, with a wink and a promise to be back, gets up and walks away.

Tony was still wheezing in the corner when Loki picked up the semi-unconscious Barbie and disappeared.

* * *

Tony was left with a migraine and a messy house. Someone had called the police, another had called an ambulance and two people alerted the fire brigade. Did they not know who lived here? Did they not know that this type of thing was commonplace and that help was rarely needed? He did take up the offer of their assistance though. He wasn't a fool.

He, two fireman and an off duty, very female police officer were sat on the burnt and dusty sofa, each a slice of double pepperoni meat feast pizza in one hand and a cold beer in the other. They were watching the latest football game with uninterested eyes.

They all ignored the little fire still softly burning on the charred curtains. It would sort itself out, they figured.

Each of them looked over their shoulders when the cracked and steamed up glass doors slid open.

"Pizza?" Tony offered to the visitor, holding the near empty box over the back of the sofa, the others turning back to the frankly dull and uneventful game.

Loki declines with a held up hand, simply standing behind where they sat like some creepy teacher, but Tony doesn't say anything. Creepy's cool. He's hot enough to make up for that.

He turns back as the game hits half-time.

* * *

An hour later, the fireman has is head on Tony's shoulder, drooling as he sleeps, the police officer and the other fireman are in the bathroom doing the dirty, and he's sitting there watching Game of Thrones re-runs as Loki sits by his feet.

It's been a good night even if it's only half two, but that fireman snores quite loud and he's still got that headache.

"This show has a lot of sex." Loki comments, head resting against Tony's knee, who's starting to feel a little like a pillow.

"Mmm... You never seen it?"

"Norse god from a mythological land, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Well, they're all hot so it's good." Loki's head twists as a lot of people die in a lot of horrible ways.

"The way they fight is inefficient." Tony looks down to the perplexed, leather wrapped, supposed god.

"But awesome." He argues, earning an approving head tilt as Loki considers it.

"_You_ are a good fighter." Tony smiles drunkenly at the compliment, but ultimately, just this once, disagrees.

"Please, I sat there and got bruises in places I didn't even know you could get bruises." Loki chuckles deeply.

"I did not say you did well in that fight, but you show potential." Tony's eyes narrow as he considers whether that was a compliment or an insult.

"Thanks?" Someone probably important dies on the TV and just for a second they are both drawn back into the land of dragons, sex and violence. Tony continues the conversation once he's mourned and the depressing yet surprisingly motivating music has slunk back down into the background. "Listen," He starts, flicking Loki on the black hair covered head to get his attention. He looks up to Tony, eyes glistening. "you seem cool. The others are off romancing -or sleeping- and I'm nowhere near drunk enough for anything to be fun. You? Me? Den of Iniquity? Drink?" Loki laughs, grinning with unfairly white chompers that make Tony look forward to tasting them, _which he will._

"I'd love to."


End file.
